I have heard a lot of people recently complaining about a few different aspects of our government, and seeing as there is an election this Tuesday now seems like an opportune time to throw in my two cents. Just a disclaimer, this does not contain anything akin to my personal preferences in the upcoming election, it is merely about some different mechanisms in our governmental structure. So, rest easy I’m not trying to force my opinions on you.

Firstly, the Electoral College, this is something which I have seen/heard quite a few people talking about recently, with some people wanting to get rid of it entirely, and others just being confused as to its purpose (personally I think that the two tend to go hand in hand). The Electoral College is what prevents our political system from being a direct democracy (which is sort of like picking a president the same way we do American Idol, it disseminates into mob rule), and makes it a federalist system. Essentially what the Electoral College does is it makes the outcome of a presidential election decisive, it also prevents highly populated states like New York and California from unilaterally deciding who the next president should be. On the flip side it gives less densely populated states an actual say in who becomes the president, and while this say is disproportional, look at the attention being given to Ohio this election, it serves to protect the rights of the citizens of those states (remember, he is the president of the United States, not just the most highly populated ones).

Secondly, a lot of people tend to complain about the mechanism of a filibuster (not specifically during the election season, but while I’m addressing grievances I might as well get this out of the way). The filibuster is actually a good thing. I know, I know…but, just hear me out. One of the strengths of our bicameral legislative system is the fact that it is slow, I know that we pay our lawmakers to do just that…pass laws. That being said, I do think that legislative work should be done slowly, in other words, we shouldn’t be passing laws just to pass laws (some of you may say that that isn’t what government does anyway, but oh well). People tend to complain that there isn’t enough cooperation in our House and Senate. To which I say you are missing the point, our governmental model was based around opposition. It is a series of checks and balances. When it’s working best it turns into a cock-blocking competition, which is ok, that’s what it was designed to do. If you want a system with more cooperation move to a country with a parliamentary system, they are built around cooperation, and with them it is almost always a coalition effort to get something passed, but here in the United States…tough luck. The filibuster is designed to protect the minority party. It is meant to prevent a majority party from ramming legislation down the minority party’s respective throats. So, stop complaining about the filibuster, it’s the way the system was designed.

In summary stop complaining about different mechanisms in our government, complain about the people in it instead. We have the longest lasting constitution, and that’s something to be proud of. The founding fathers were smarter people than you or I (for example George Washington was not considered to be a well-educated man, but read any of his speeches and you’ll understand what I mean [yes, he wrote his own speeches unlike any of our recent heads of state]). Basically our system works, don’t mess it up.

I do recognize that there are many flaws with our system. I think that the filibuster is grossly abused at this point, all that I'm saying is that it has a purpose, so I am hesitant to do away with it all together.
I would like to stand in defense of the Electoral College by saying that while it could use some tweaking to do away with it all together would be a very bad idea. The South seceded for reasons that I see as being similar to what would happen if the Electoral College were to be done away with, i.e. their voices weren't heard (Lincoln wasn't on the ballot in many of the southern states, yet managed to win as a result of population differences).
This was mostly meant to inform people about the mechanisms, I don't personally think that our system is either perfect or ideal by a long shot. I was merely trying to offer some conservative defenses of the two, which do not necessarily align with my personal views.